by V E Rooney
I recognise some of Sean’s crew – Paul and Lee – but the rest of the guests here so far are all new to me. I don’t know whether they’re part of Sean’s crew or whether this is a get-together for Sean’s associates from other crews. Most definitely a gathering of hard cases judging by the amount of shaven heads, broken noses, steroid-induced muscles and gruff demeanours on display, even if they’re a bit more well-dressed than usual.
There are some women here as well. I’m presuming that they’re the wives and girlfriends and hangers-on, all model-types with the big lacquered hairdos and the tight-fitting skimpy dresses and tops, the make-up trowelled on so thick that they look like shop dummies. There’s so much cleavage on display that for one of the few times in my life, I feel inadequate. The boys’ eyes are out on stalks.
Paul is stood by the staircase chatting to a couple of girls when he spots me. He kind of raises his eyebrows up in greeting and makes his way over. I can see the girls behind him scanning me up and down with a “who the fuck is that?” expression on their faces. Don’t worry, girls, I’d rather sit on my finger than shag him. You’ll get no competition from me.
“Alright, girl?” Paul says. “Alright, lads?” The boys chorus “yeah, yeah” in response as their heads swivel round to take in the opulence of the place. Marble pillars here, stained glass panels there, carpets as deep as the Mersey underfoot.
“Go help yourselves to some bevvies and scran in the kitchen, down the end of the hallway on the right,” Paul says cheerily as he nods in the direction of the kitchen.
“Sound!” says John as he eagerly bounds forward and leads the others away. Paul puts an arm round my shoulder to guide me after them.
“Sean’ll be here soon, yeah? He wants to see you about something so don’t get too pissed in the meantime, alright? Enjoy.” With that, he heads back to the girls who are still giving me dirty looks. I give them a quick, sarky smile as I pass them into the kitchen.
I have never seen a kitchen this big in my entire life. The kitchen alone is about three times bigger than my entire flat and kitted out with gleaming cabinets, shelves and glass cases around three walls. Covering an entire work surface is a sparkling array of every kind of bottled beverage, champagne bottles, wine bottles and a stack of glasses, almost like a proper bar in a club. The back of the kitchen is encased entirely by floor-to-ceiling glass panels and doors opening out into the garden. There is a freestanding kitchen island around which several guests are chatting excitedly to each other. The boys are already diving into the makeshift bar, their eyes wide with wonder and smiles lighting up their faces.
I peer into the garden. Beyond a large paved patio area complete with tables, chairs and a purpose-built brick barbecue is a stepped wooden decking area leading down into the garden itself. It’s a good 200 metres in length. Massive trees stand around the perimeter, like silent sentries. There are flowerbeds dotted around the outside. Towards the rear of the garden I can see another wooden decked covered seating area with sofas, beanbags and heaters. Some serious mint has gone into this place. In the middle of the garden is a 30-metre swimming pool, lit up with different colours of lights under the water. Some of the guests are already making full use of it and a few of the girls have discarded their clothes to get the full experience.
I turn back into the kitchen to see a dining area off to the right. The large oak dining table is surrounded by 12 matching chairs, and the table itself appears to be the designated coke-snorting/joint-rolling area, judging by the number of people who are bent over it, tapping their noses and taking tokes.
I’m jolted from my awe by the boys joining me. Ste hands me a Coke of the liquid kind. He’s nodding vigorously at nothing in particular.
“Fucking hell, would you look at all this? It’s fucking boss!” John says.
“It certainly is. Sean knows how to throw a party,” I concur.
“Is he here?” says Brian.
“No, not yet. Look, it’s still early, so don’t be getting too fucked straight away, alright? Looks like this could be an all-nighter, the way everyone’s hoovering that coke up,” I say, nodding towards the dining area.
“I don’t touch that shit. Interferes with my boxing. The body’s a temple and all that. But I’m sure Bill and Ben here will be having a few toots,” Ste says, looking at John and Brian who are already checking out the girls.
“I’m serious, you lot. Don’t be making a show of us tonight, or we’ll be out on our arses and banished before we know it. Sean won’t put up with anyone who makes a tit out of him. And neither will I.”
Ste pulls a face of mock surprise. “Oooh, get a load of Mary Whitehouse here. Enjoy yourself for once, will you? Look around. This is where all our hard work has got us to. We could have gaffs like this if we play our cards right,” Ste says as he surveys the kitchen and then the garden. “Fuck me. Are those birds in the nude?” With that, all three boys hurry into the garden to get a look at the pool girls.
I haven’t even finished rolling my eyes at them when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and come face-to-face with the gunrunning Northern Irishman from Manchester. He gives me a smile.
“Ali, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” I say, somewhat hesitantly.
He holds out his hand.
“I thought it was time to put names to faces. I’m Martin.”
“How you doing, Martin?” I say as I shake his hand. The friendliness in his manner couldn’t be more of a contrast with the impenetrable bluntness I’m more familiar with. In our previous six encounters, which never last more than a minute, he has never uttered more than six words to me. I guess he’s off the clock tonight.
“Grand, grand. Nice spread, isn’t it?” he says, looking at the coke area.
“If you like that sort of thing.”
“You don’t touch the hard stuff, then?” he says, furrowing his brow at me.
“I don’t even drink booze. I’m well-behaved like that.”
He laughs. “Oh, that’s a rarity, that is.”
“It would be for an Irishman.”
“Oh, is that a little prejudice coming through there?” he says in mock indignation.
“Not at all. I happen to be Irish myself. Well, sort of,” I shrug.
“Oh, is that right? I guess that’s to be expected in this town.”
“Sometimes I think there’s more Irish people over here than in Ireland.”
“Well, we’re a hard-working people, you see. We came over here and built this country’s roads, its factories, even built most of the houses.”
“Well, there’s nothing like a famine to motivate people,” I say, regretting it before the words have finished coming out of my mouth. Did I really just make a flippant comment about the Irish famine to someone who is possibly a member of the IRA? Fuck.
Martin’s eyes widen for a moment and just when I think he’s about to chin me, he lets rip with a belly laugh. “Christ. Gotta love the black humour.”
“Well, like my Mum always says to me, when you’re in the shit, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. And what’s the point in crying?” I shrug. Martin nods along. Just then, a slinky model-type comes up behind Martin and slips her arm around his waist. She gives me the once-over. “I wondered where you’d got to,” she says to Martin. Another Paddy.
“Marie, this is Ali, remember the wee thing I was telling you about?” says Martin by way of introduction. Marie looks gobsmacked for a moment and then she looks at me, beaming.
“Oh my God, you’re her? Bejesus love, you look like you’re barely out of school. Oh, no offence, it’s just that from the way he was blathering on, I thought you were older!”
“Turns up on time, no questions asked. Sean’s got himself a little diamond with this one,” Martin purrs. All of a sudden I’m feeling embarrassed, like I’ve become the teacher’s pet without even knowing it. Marie puts an arm around me. “I swear to Christ, I don’t know how you put up with this lot. Don’t even know how I manage it
myself sometimes,” she says, rolling her eyes at Martin.
“Because I keep you in the style to which you think you’re accustomed, that’s how,” Martin says, winking at me.
It’s all very light-hearted and jokey. I think I like these two. They’re like the fun auntie and uncle at a family party. But then I remember that Martin is an arms dealer doing business with one of the area’s biggest crims, my boss, and I snap out of my whimsical nonsense and whizz firmly back into reality. Especially when I see Sean approaching us. The main man has arrived and virtually every guest at the party calls out greetings to him as he makes his way over. He acknowledges everyone like a hero returning from battle. It’s clear that a lot of people in this room – if not all – are in some way dependent on him.
He has this glint in his eye, Sean has. You can tell when he’s in a good mood because his eyes come alive, they become luminescent. And when he’s in a bad mood? Get the fuck out of the way when you see those eyes darken and dim, because that means that you’ve fucked up and now you’re about to get fucked up in return.
When Sean and Martin spot each other, it’s all bear hugs and backslapping, like they haven’t seen each other in years. Come to think of it, maybe they haven’t. Maybe our particular line of business dictates that these two associates remain at a safe distance from each other, with yours truly acting as the go-between. I’m under no delusions about my bit-part role either. If I was Sean and I was arranging drugs swaps for guns? I’d be looking for a patsy as well. I’d be getting the person with the clean skin, someone not part of the inner circle, to do the dirty work for me. Someone who has never had any trouble with Police and who can’t be connected to me. So, despite the friendliness and the money, I retain in my head at all times that in this line of work, everyone is dispensable. Do your job but detach from it at the same time. Like the Buddhist lot say, attachment leads to suffering. Ste told me that one, he likes to quote Bruce Lee and Sun Tzu when he needs to justify to himself that yes, that dickhead’s skull really did need fracturing.
Sean, Martin and Marie are still chinwagging to each other so I turn away to head elsewhere when I feel a tug on my arm. It’s Sean. “Oi, you. Wanna chinwag with you later. Meet me in the games room in an hour.”
Instructions received, I go to find the boys outside by the pool. It’s getting frisky in the water, and the free Charlie has emboldened a few party guests to go skinny dipping. A couple of models are bouncing up and down in the water, arms stretched to the sky, while a bloke pours champagne from the bottle down their respective cleavages. At the other end of the pool, a male-female couple are grinding against each other, tongues slathering in and out of each other’s mouths. John, Ste and Brian, along with several other people, are stood poolside taking in all the action.
Elsewhere in the illuminated garden, small clusters of partygoers are dancing along to the music, occasionally stopping to neck some E, have a sniff of the poppers and a toot off the wrist. Some people have overdone it already – there’s one fat bastard who fell into a flowerbed as he was taking a piss and is now snoring so loudly you’d think a hippo was hiding in there, with his dick hanging out of his zip like an inflated slug and piss stains down the front of his trousers.
The warm summer night air combined with the fairy lights floating overhead and the cacophony of laughter and conversation conjure up a playground for grown-ups, like a budget version of the Playboy mansion. But I can’t quite shake this gnawing feeling in my mind that I don’t quite belong here. Not yet, anyway.
It’s not that I feel particularly self-conscious in the midst of all these friends and associates of Sean, even if I have clocked a few disdainful looks directed at my clothes – baggy jeans, acid house t-shirt and scuffed-up trainers. It’s more a sense that I can’t fully relax, that I always need to be switched-on and alert for hidden danger. Sean obviously wants to talk business of some kind, hence my invite here tonight. But I have to admit to myself that there is a small seed of disappointment within me, something that points a finger at me and tells me that it’s my usefulness, and not me as a person, which is the only reason I’m here tonight.
Having wandered through the grounds at leisure, I go back towards the house and look for the games room. I could ask someone where it is but I’d much rather have a mooch for myself. The living room – the larger of the two in the house – is jammed with people in party mood, and next to that, the other living room appears to be serving as the makeshift chill-out area, complete with people in various states of intoxication and consciousness. I swerve around the centrepiece stairway to explore the other side of the hallway. There is a door slightly ajar at the rear of the hallway and a subdued light coming from inside. I peer round the gap to see a full-size snooker table standing in the centre of the room. Two blokes I have never seen before are having a game of snooker while Sean and Paul are stood nearby.
Sean spots me and beckons for me to enter. “In here, girl.” As I go inside, I see that the walls of the games room are lined with framed sports shirts – football mostly, but a few rugby ones as well. Most of the footie shirts are of course Liverpool FC ones, some of which are signed. As I trudge over to Sean, I see one that says: “To Sean, cheers for a boss night, all the best, K”. Surely not King Kenny himself? He doesn’t seem the type to be hanging around with gangsters.
At the other end of the room is a massive TV/hi-fi set-up surrounded by some curved black leather sofas. There is a freestanding trophy cabinet in the corner nearby rammed with statuettes of varying colours and sizes. Looks like boxing and martial arts trophies. Did Sean win these or are they just for show?
Sean drains his bottle of lager and sets it down on the end of the snooker table. “Give us a few minutes, lads,” he says to Paul and the two other lads, one of which is cueing up a shot, but they both put down their cues without hesitation and they all exit the room, nodding at us both as they go past. Sean points to the sofa area and we make our way over. I try to sit down and settle into the leather in a way that doesn’t make it sound like I’m farting as I do so.
“So then,” Sean says, beaming. “What do you reckon to this place?”
I give the room a cursory scan. “Toys for boys, eh?”
Sean grins and rubs his stubbly chin with the back of his hand. “I can see you’re not easily impressed, are you, girl?”
“I can think of better uses for my money,” I say truthfully. Sean seems to find this response amusing, what with the rather contemptuous chuckle that comes out of his gob.
“Looks like buying clothes isn’t one of them,” he says, cocking a sneer at my get-up.
“Cheeky sod. These are brand new,” I say, looking at my baggy jeans.
“I’m serious. You’ve made thousands out of your little operation and yet you don’t spend any of it. And the brewsties I’m throwing your way as well. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want people throwing their money around, attracting unnecessary attention, but you can treat yourself sometimes, you know. Where’s it all going? You don’t drink, you don’t smoke…”
“What do you do,” we say at the same time, giving a nod to Adam and The Ants’ Goody Two Shoes.
“It goes in the bank. Or in the safe when I don’t want the bank asking awkward questions. Oh yeah, I got that car. And then gave it to Ste. To be perfectly honest, Sean? I was so caught up in making money that I didn’t give much thought to what I’d actually do with it.”
Sean leans forward, his hands pressed together. Oh great, am I getting a pep talk here?
“You should start thinking about what to do with it. For starters, you can upgrade from that shithole flat in Kirkby. No reason why you can’t get a nice little pad in town, somewhere more central.”
“Oh, there’s a very good reason. I like my shithole in Kirkby,” I reply, with an unexpected note of sternness in my voice.
“It wasn’t a suggestion, Ali,” Sean says, looking intently at me. “I need you more central. Look, you can even have one of my
rental places bang in the city centre. I’ve got a development near Wood Street, one of those old warehouses getting turned into fancy loft apartments.”
“And you need me more central because…”
“Business is picking up,” he says with a shrug as he sits back on the sofa and splays his arms on the headrest behind him. I raise my eyebrows at him.
“Look, no bullshit, no flannel, alright?” Sean says. “The last few months, you’ve done what I asked, when I asked, and you’ve kept your head down. You’ve done good, Ali, really good. I’ve had no complaints off anyone about you. Well, apart from Lee, he thinks you’re a smart arse with a gob that’s begging for a smack, but that’s just him.”
“Oh cheers, that’s heart-warming,” I say, frowning. I want to say something else but I bite my lip.
“What is it?” Sean says, furrowing his brow.
“It’s just…well, I was used to doing things my own way, know what I mean? I did it for so long. I was comfortable, you know? And now I’m at the beck and call of you and your lads, dealing with people like Martin and all that. What I’m saying is, I don’t like feeling like a fucking youth training scheme girl, being given all the shitty jobs to do while the men go off a-hunting.”
“You’ve done your apprenticeship, Ali. As far as I’m concerned, you’re now a fully paid-up member of my crew, just like Paul and the rest. Which reminds me,” he says as he reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a fat envelope. He holds it towards me. “Consider this a bonus for all your hard graft.”